The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical contacts having stub portions that generate an electrical resonance during operation.
Electrical connectors are used to transmit data in various industries. The electrical connectors are often configured to repeatedly engage and disengage complementary electrical connectors. The process of mating the electrical connectors may be referred to as a mating operation. For example, in a backplane communication system, a backplane circuit board has a header connector that is configured to mate with a receptacle connector. The receptacle connector is typically mounted to a daughter card. The header connector includes an array of electrical contacts (hereinafter referred to as “header contacts”), and the receptacle connector includes a complementary array of electrical contacts (hereinafter referred to as “receptacle contacts”). During the mating operation, the receptacle contacts mechanically engage and slide along the corresponding header contacts. The sliding engagement between the receptacle and header contacts may be referred to as a wiping action, because each receptacle contact wipes along a contact surface of the corresponding header contact.
During this wiping action, each receptacle contact typically slides from a contact end of the corresponding header contact toward a mating zone along the header contact. The mating zone is a distance away from the contact end of the header contact. The portion of the header contact that extends between the contact end and the mating zone is referred to as a stub portion. During operation of the system, energy propagates from the mating zone to the contact end of the header contact where the energy is then reflected back toward the mating zone. At current transmission speeds the reflected energy may resonate, such that the stub portion acts as an antenna that enables electromagnetic radiation to permeate the interface between the mated header and receptacle contacts. Shielding may be required to contain such electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiated by stub portions acting as antennas, which may be costly and thereby increase the cost of manufacturing the connectors.
Accordingly, a need remains for electrical contacts that reduce the unwanted effects of reflected energy along stub portions of the electrical contacts.